I just finished Rand's first novel, We the Living, which at its core held that one's life and desires are to be held as sacred, and no one should be able to take them away from you. We the Living takes place in the early USSR, where she herself lived before "escaping" to America. Her description of communist Russia explains a lot about her description, in Atlas Shrugged, of America collapsing into tyranny and poverty under socialism. I still have yet to meet a libertarian, and I've found Rand's writing to quite interesting. They present very extreme opinions and you've just gotta stay aware of that and use your own brain.
One thing I found interesting was in the introduction, written by philospher and Rand fan Leondard Peikoff. He says "The basic cause of totalitarianism is two ideas: mean's rejection of reason in favor of faith, and of self-interest in favor of self-sacrifice." Now I can't say that is necessarily true, because I don't know. But I find it interesting to keep in mind. This makes some sense with regard to communist Russia, though I'd say fear had a lot to do with it after reading We the Living. Peikoff points to Christian America as an example: "Witness the rise, in the United States today, of the Fundamentalist right aiming to outlaw ideas and values that conflict with the Bible... and, in more immediately practical terms, the eight year rule of a "born-again" President, who shut down biological research he regarded as irreligious while claiming a message from beyond as a guide to foreign policy" (can anyone explain that last bit? I have steared too clear of news and politics in my life)
Anyway it struck me that these conditions are coming together as environmentalist try to push the world to stop wasting (self-sacrifice), based on science that the world mostly has to just take on faith. This is just a thought, don't get me wrong. I am trying to get a career in renewable energy, so I'm not really against this. But it is a thought.
